Stories from the margins: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social innovation among rural women entrepreneurs in Oman

Abstract

This paper examines how rural women entrepreneurs in Oman develop and exercise entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) within institutional, cultural, and market constraints. Drawing on six qualitative case narratives from in-depth interviews, field notes, and follow-up dialogues, it adopts a contextual lens to interpret ESE as a socially embedded and dynamic capability rather than a fixed trait. Findings show that psychological resilience, informal social capital, digital experimentation, and cultural positioning enable women to initiate and sustain ventures in resource-constrained environments. Despite limited institutional outreach and exclusion from formal entrepreneurial ecosystems, the women in this study leverage family networks, indigenous skills, and mobile technologies to build confidence and assert agency. The study reconceptualises ESE in gendered rural contexts and extends the discourse on inclusive entrepreneurship through resilience, embeddedness, and digital inclusion. It further challenges top-down models of rural development by highlighting lived experience, relational strategies, and micro-level adaptation, offering implications for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in inclusive regional development.